How to Create the Ultimate Customer Feedback Report

Do you ever feel like you're drowning in customer feedback data and don't know where to start?

You're not alone.

And this might hit you hard if, one day, your task is to create a customer feedback report.

Many professionals struggle to create a customer feedback report that is useful and easy to read, but also actionable and complex. Today, we will discuss how to create the ultimate customer feedback report. At the end of this article, you will be able to confidently put together a report that your manager or executive will love.

First, let's start with the basics.

What is a customer feedback report

A customer feedback report is simply a document that compiles customer feedback data into an easy-to-read format. This report can be used to help improve customer service, product development, marketing, and more.

Customer feedback reports help companies understand what their customers are thinking and feeling. Without this data, it would be difficult to make informed decisions about how to improve the customer experience.

In customer service, a customer feedback report is used to understand what customers are saying about their experience with a company.

In product development, a customer feedback report helps businesses understand how to develop services and products.

In marketing, a customer feedback report helps companies understand what customers think of their brand.

Now, let's find out how to create the report.

Creating a customer feedback report: step by step

#1 Set your customer service goals

What do you want to achieve with this report, apart from... creating it?

Your customer feedback report should be aligned with your goals. This will make it easier to interpret the data and take actionable steps based on the findings.

Depending on your goals, you may want to include different types of data in your report. For example, if you're trying to reduce customer churn, you'll want to analyze customer loyalty data. On the other hand, if you're trying to increase first contact resolution rates, you'll want to analyze details about contact center performance. There are many examples and use cases of a customer feedback report.

#2 Define how to collect customer feedback

Collecting data is not difficult per se, but first you need to decide how you're going to do it. While there are many methods of customer feedback collection, some are more effective than others.

If you run a small business, you don't need to spend a small fortune on customer feedback collection tools. It can be scalable, and you can gradually add more feedback collection methods as your business grows. One of the most crucial mistakes you can make here is to dive into too many methods at once—it will only overwhelm you and your team without providing valuable responses.

No matter how many methods you choose, make sure also to define how often you want to collect customer feedback. A survey can be sent out weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, for example.

And, finally, don't forget to decide who will be responsible for collecting the data. Will it be a team effort, or will one person be in charge of the details? Too many cooks spoil the broth, but customer feedback is such an important topic that it's often best to have more than one person responsible for it.

Divide your selected methods into qualitative and quantitative customer feedback sources and let the magic do its work.

#3 Collect qualitative customer feedback data

With qualitative customer feedback, you're trying to understand the customer's feelings and opinions about your company, product, or service. It's not easy at all, but it's worth it.

Here are some ideas for collecting qualitative customer feedback.

Interviews

You can interview your customers either in person, over the phone, or via a video call to collect details about specific topics, but you need to be aware of potential challenges. This includes the fact that you need to have a skilled interviewer, as well as that it can be difficult to get customers to agree to an interview in the first place.

Focus groups

These are similar to interviews, but with a group of people instead of just one person. Challenging? For sure, but these kinds of groups can provide some valuable insights and details that you may not be able to get from interviews.

Customer feedback forms

With a customer feedback form, you can collect qualitative customer feedback, as such a form is easy to fill out and doesn't require much time. 

The downside of it is that the responses might be brief and lack detail. However, it's all down to you and how you structure questions so that you can encourage customers to provide detailed responses. Your customer feedback form doesn't have to be extremely long to give you a lot of food for thought and point out areas for improvement.

Bug reports

You built that amazing site, but customers are still experiencing some issues. What to do? Check the bug reports! These often contain relevant suggestions for how to improve your product or service. Customers are happy to provide them if they know it will help make the experience better for everyone, and satisfied when these improvements are implemented.

Testimonials

Client testimonials can also provide some useful insights and feedback. Not all testimonials are rainbows and butterflies—some customers will use them as an opportunity to point out areas where you can improve. Make sure to read each opinion carefully, identify pain points, and look for any suggestions on how you can make things work better.

Surveys with open-ended questions only

If you want to know how your customers feel about your brand, this kind of survey (with a separate section for additional comments) can help you assess your overall experience and verify if your business is heading in the right direction. Even a single survey can provide actionable insights if you ask the right questions.

Live chats records

Qualitative data from live chats can also be useful. You can use a chatbot, or even better—have a human being on the other side to collect as much information as possible about potential problems and needs. Get even more insights by adding Intercom Messenger surveys, for example.

Qualitative customer feedback is essential to better understand the customer's experience with your company. However, for many companies, it can be difficult to collect and interpret at times. That's why it's often best to complement it with quantitative data.

#4 Collect quantitative customer feedback data

Quantitative customer feedback is all about numbers and statistics. It can be extremely useful in juxtaposing with qualitative customer feedback, and providing critical and scalable insights that wouldn't be possible to get otherwise. It can also be used on its own to provide a more complete picture of customer feedback.

‍Here are some ideas for collecting qualitative customer feedback:

CSAT surveys

Customer Satisfaction surveys can help you collect quantitative feedback. A customer satisfaction survey is easy to set up and administer, and customers can provide responses that can be easily analyzed. This survey gives you details you can use to improve customer satisfaction and get more clients on board—but also to search for possible problems that need to be fixed.

Depending on how many responses you get, you may need to use statistical software to help you make sense of the data—or simply generate a feedback analysis report with Survicate.

NPS surveys

Net Promoter Score surveys are another popular option for collecting quantitative customer feedback. They're quick and easy to fill out, and they provide valuable insights into both customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. Your NPS score can show you trends over time and help you track the progress of your team's performance and improvement.

Support quality evaluation surveys

If you are to create a customer feedback report based on the performance of your support teams, a support quality evaluation survey will be one of the first ones to bring relevant findings for your report. It will help you understand your customers' experience when they reach out for support and how it affects their perception of your brand.

Likert scale surveys

For many, Likert scale surveys are essential in a feedback report. However, here you need to pay more attention to the content of questions in this type of survey as it's easy to create leading questions. If you're not careful, you may end up with results that don't actually reflect customer sentiment accurately.

#5 Run additional customer satisfaction surveys if needed

There is never too much feedback. You may want to run an additional survey to get more insights into specific areas. An extra customer satisfaction survey is helpful in many cases. 

For example, if you find out in your first survey that customers are not happy with a particular account or customer support experience, you may want to run a follow-up poll to further measure customer satisfaction and see if you can get details to identify the root cause of the problem.

Survicate is a great example of a survey tool to help you with this process. You'll find numerous customer feedback report templates that you can use as is or customize to your specific needs. 

You can also use the Survicate platform to create your own survey from scratch. All for the sake of creating a bespoke customer feedback analysis you can act on, and making better, data-driven decisions.

#6 Analyze and structure the data

No matter if you run a single survey or have findings from all over the place, you need to structure it in a customer feedback report. The analysis is an important part of it, as you'll be looking for patterns, connections, and anything that stands out.

Use different colors to mark remarkable answers or survey responses. If you see a lot of the same pattern, it's probably something you should analyze in the first place.

Cluster responses, opinions, comments, and numerical data into segments for a better overview. This will also come in handy when you want to target a group of customers with a certain message or offer.

Leave some space for additional comments in your customer report too—especially in terms of quantitative feedback.

#7 Create a visual report

You can go two ways with this one.

The first option is to use Survicate's built-in reporting module which will give you access to fully customizable reports. You can even export them as PDFs or share them with your teams via a link.

The second option is to use data visualization tools to compare responses coming from multiple sources. You can use a graphic design tool to compile responses from your survey, customer support tickets, and product reviews into one easily digestible customer feedback report.

However, make sure that all stakeholders are aware of the format of your report. On many occasions, it turned out that a simple spreadsheet is all that they need to analyze customer feedback.

#8 Write actionable conclusions and next steps

When you analyze customer feedback, you'll quickly realize that it rarely comes in the form of "this is what you need to do." However, there are ways to turn customer feedback into specific and actionable conclusions.

Group the responses, examples, and comments, that you've collected into specific themes. For instance, you may have identified a theme of "poor support experience" or "lack of communication."

Once you have your themes, it's time to brainstorm what conclusions you can draw from them. What do they tell you about your business? Are there any areas you need to improve? Are there any processes you need to change?

Finally, once you have your conclusions, it's time to turn them into the next steps. What specific changes are you going to make? Who is going to be responsible for making these changes? When do you plan on implementing them?

All answers should be accompanied by actionable insights to improve customer experience and brand trust.

#9 Close the feedback loop

With different aspects of customer feedback in mind, it's important to close the feedback loop. In other words, to take action based on what you've learned. 

It can be as simple as making a few changes to your customer service process or sending a follow-up email to a dissatisfied customer who expressed their disappointment over a customer feedback form. Whatever you do, make sure you're constantly working on meeting customers' requirements.

#10 Rinse and repeat

A single customer feedback form and a couple of customer satisfaction survey responses might be enough to create one customer journey report, but the process shouldn't stop there.

You should be constantly gathering customer feedback and analyzing it to improve your product, service, team, and business. The process of creating a customer feedback report should become a part of your company's DNA—and you'll see in no time how helpful it is for everyone in the company to be on the same page.

The last step of your customer feedback report is the first step of your next one.

Make sure you iterate some changes to each new report to make it more insightful and actionable. For example, you can add a tracking code to each survey to see where the responses come from.

You can also include a short summary of what actions were taken based on the previous report, and search for new sources of responses and comments that might have emerged.

Over to you

When creating a customer feedback report, make sure to include both qualitative and quantitative data. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, but together they provide a more complete picture of client sentiment.

Do not get discouraged if you don't see any improvement immediately. It takes time to change a company's culture, but it's worth it in the long run. And with feedback reports, you'll be able to track your progress along the way.

Ready to get started with your feedback reports? First, you need some great feedback and we have the perfect tool for you. Sign up for your free trial of Survicate today!